CNN’s Howard Kurtz was in the Fox house last night, appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Kurtz, on his CNN show “Reliable Sources” had criticized a comment Bill O’Reilly made about the lack of reporting/analysis on of the president’s policy on drone strikes.
O’Reilly had singled out NBC News in a discussion with Bob Beckel. O’Reilly interchangeably uses NBC News, which does reporting, and MSNBC, which leans on analysis.
The O’Reilly-Kurtz made-for-cable-TV debate was lively but neither host conceded much of anything, because that’s not in the script. But O’Reilly is convinced the appearance will boost Kurtz’s ratings: “We are sure you will get a lot of email about it and run it on your program on Sunday. And you will get higher ratings.”
It was a contentious appearance on The Factor on Wednesday, as I knew it would be. When you criticize O’Reilly, as I did on my CNN program Reliable Sources, he doesn’t take kindly to that. But the bottom line is he was fair and I got to make my points, given all the limitations of a short and confrontational television interview.